Turkey sausage recipes

[Rosalind]

I did some experimenting yesterday, and here were the best two recipes I came up with:

Apple cranberry

1 apple, grated with skin on
1/3 c. rough chopped raw cranberries
2 tbsp. raw/brown sugar
1 lb. ground turkey
1 tsp. grated orange rind
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. salt

Spicy pepper

1 lb. ground turkey
4 Thai Dragon peppers, dried and smashed in a mortar & pestle
2 tsp. paprika
1 tbsp. chili powder
2 tsp. black pepper, fresh ground
1 tsp. salt

To make sausages, mix ingredients in bowl and re-grind through meat grinder. Sausages can be stuffed into casings or simply rolled into shape. Smoke on a smoker (we fired ours with cherry wood, but hickory would also be nice) at ~225F for, hmm, about 20-30 minutes for hotdog-size sausages, more like 35-40 minutes for kielbasa-size.

Note about casings: I could not find any locally, despite the existence of several small local butchers who claim to make their own sausage. I ordered sheep casings from Cabela's, Eastman brand. OMG

I soaked them with several changes of water, and they still smelled like low tide in New Jersey. No way was I eating anything that had touched that. It did not even smell like sheep poop, sheep poop smells better than that. It was just downright spoiled. If anyone has a source for decent sausage casings, I would love to hear about it.